


The Painting of Dean Winchester

by Eccentric_Grace



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Absent John Winchester, Childhood Trauma, Dean Winchester Needs Therapy, Dean Winchester Talks About Feelings, Dean Winchester Whump, Dean Winchester is Sam Winchester's Parent, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, John Winchester Bashing, John Winchester Being an Asshole, John Winchester Has Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:14:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29245650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eccentric_Grace/pseuds/Eccentric_Grace
Summary: Ms. Smith nods, continuing to study him. She had seen hundreds of children by now, working as a counselor. She’s heard stories she wish she could forget. She’s seen the most broken of expressions on faces that should be full of innocence. But Dean? This scrawny fourteen year old boy? He was still. A near-expressionless soldier.(Aka—The school counselor checks in on Dean and asks him a few questions about his home life.)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 75





	The Painting of Dean Winchester

**Author's Note:**

> ⚠️TW: mentions and technical talk of the effects of parental abandonment, alcoholism, child abuse, physical and emotional neglect, and basically most of Dean’s childhood trauma⚠️
> 
> stay safe everyone
> 
> also please note that I am not a therapist, counselor, or psychologist, this is simply a work of fiction and I got my hands on google

“Hello,” she smiles kindly. Her demeanor has shifted over the years, having listened to so many stories of children in hidden pain and masks of anger. She keeps her eyes free of judgement and her hands crossing politely over her lap.

She figures Dean Winchester like most kids who act out. Struggling, having a hard time being understood or listened to in one aspect of their life or another. His first day was just yesterday, and he already managed to gather one detention. This of course was a red flag, so she wanted to just talk with him; to subtly check in.

While Dean seemed grateful for a get-out-of-detention free pass, he was now looking like he wanted to bolt out the door. Ms. Smith has seen it before, and remains calm and collected. She isn’t angry, because she never is.

“Listen,” Dean shifts uncomfortably in the chair. His eyes flit all over the office. “If I’m in trouble or whatever, fine. My dad will write a note. But I have to go, my little brother is expecting me at the front of the school when the bell rings. I walk him home.”

Ms. Smith nods. “I understand, Dean. I just wanted to talk with you for a moment.”

Dean stares at her and glances down at her desk. His eyes catch her name on a metal slide. “...Ms. Smith, with all due respect, it’s not worth it. My dad will move out in a few weeks anyways. This is a temporary school.”

Temporary school. She had seen his file—Along with his brother’s. They did seem to move around. The reason listed for each enrollment was never behaviour-based, despite the long lists of detention. It was always locational.

“Yes, I’ve noticed you have switched schools quite a lot,” Ms. Smith looks down at a paper in her hands. “All over the country, too. Does your family like to travel?”

“Something like that,” Dean narrows his eyes. He doesn’t say anymore, so Ms. Smith takes the reins of the conversation.

“Well, either way—“ Ms. Smith starts. “You are new. And I’d like to welcome you in any way that I can, so I’m just going to be asking you some questions that I ask all students that enroll in the middle of the year. Some of them may fit, others might not.”

“Fine.” 

She figures after a second of thinking that she could start with some trauma screening questions. While it was never her business, Dean has full right to decline any questions, and judging by the look on his face, he knows this fact.

“How are things at home?” She asks casually. It’s an open ended question, meaning the answer could be as simple or as complicated as Dean wants to make it. She takes mental note of how Dean almost flinches.

“It’s fine,” Dean answers plainly. “Whatever.”

“And your father—“ Dean flinches again—“How is he? It says on your file that he’s raising you and your brother alone.”

“He’s fine.”

Ms. Smith nods, continuing to study him. She had seen hundreds of children by now. She’s heard stories she wish she could forget. She’s seen the most broken of expressions on faces that should be full of innocence. But Dean? This scrawny fourteen year old boy? He was still. A near-expressionless soldier.

“Have you ever felt like there was a time where your father hasn’t been able to get out of bed, or do the things he needs to do?” Ms. Smith questions. “Maybe something like cook dinner, or run to the store?”

“He’s fine,” Dean repeats, but something in his eyes falter. Ms. Smith makes another mental note.

“So he’s looking after you?”

“It doesn’t matter.” The hesitating confusion in Dean’s eyes fades and he goes back to being ironclad. “I can look after myself.”

A lack of healthy dependency on support, Ms. Smith thinks. Usually due to trauma relating to figures of power or parental units. She’s seen it mostly in absent parenting. Just like that, she starts seeing a picture form in her mind of who Dean really is.

“Of course,” Ms. Smith nods along. “And your brother. Do you look after him?”

“‘Course I do,” Dean scoffs. “He’s my baby brother. Of course I look after him. I make sure he eats dinner and gets his homework done and crap.”

Father doesn’t make dinner, Ms. Smith notes. It confirms the absent parent theory. Dean and his brother are probably being raised by himself. It fits with the other evidence.

“So, you make dinner for you and your brother?” Ms. Smith asks.

Dean slowly nods, narrowing his eyes again. “What’s the point? This doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

“I’m just trying to get a clearer picture,” Ms. Smith smiles. “Sorry. My old age, it sometimes keeps me from understanding, so I usually ask more questions then necessary. Does your dad eat with you, or is it just the two of you?” 

“It’s the two of us, most of the time.” Dean sits back in his chair and crosses his arms.

Physical neglect. More common with male students, Ms. Smith has noticed, which is unbelievably depressing. And while she could go on about how children of all shapes and colours deserve healthy attention for the betterment of their mental and physical development and growth, she’s more concerned about the growing list of dark shades being added to the portrait of this boy sitting in front of her.

“It’s getting pretty cold outside,” Ms. Smith comments. “Are you staying warm? Do you have fitting gloves and jackets?”

“Trust me, lady, this state is hardly cold.” Dean crinkles his nose. “But, my dad gives me his old jackets when it’s in freezing temperatures. I give Sam mine. We stay warm enough.”

It is interesting, Ms. Smith begins to think, how Dean’s answers shift from “I” to “we” so fluently. She doesn’t press further on it, and she also doesn’t think much more. There isn’t enough evidence to think of any possible reasons.

“Right, right. And what about your dad? Do you ever feel like he’s sad for a long time?”

And Dean laughs—actually LAUGHS. He shakes his head and looks down. “Miss, my dad is an alcoholic, alright? It’s the nineties. Everybody is depressed.”

A red alarm sounds in Ms. Smith’s mind, she cracks a smile to show Dean that she’s still not judging, that she recognizes his attempt at humour of a bad situation. She nods. “The nineties it is.”

Alcoholism is a tricky subject on its own, but when paired with parenting—it’s effects have seen to be devastating on the children. The normalization of alcohol is something that comes into play as the child grows up, but she’s seen it come into play as early as fourteen, which is how old this boy is.

Other behaviours consist of lack of normalcy, which certainly wouldn’t help Dean with his constant moving around, trust issues, which she saw the moment Dean sat down in her office, and constant approval-seeking. Approval-seeking is a bit more of a stretch, she thinks at first, but quickly remembers that the reason Dean got detention was for disrupting the class to make jokes, which in her experience only happens with kids that want positive attention, like laughter, from other kids.

“He likes to argue when he’s drunk,” Dean shrugs. “When he’s sober too, honestly. It’s nothin’, though.”

“Do you feel safe at home?” Ms. Smith asks, tilting her head carefully to the side. She’s almost afraid to hear the answer, just for this kid’s sake. 

Dean doesn’t respond. He doesn’t utter a word. But his eyes flash with a specific type of practiced fear, and Ms. Smith swears she can see his lip tremble before he clenches his jaw. His nostrils flair, right before his hand comes up to his face to scratch his cheek. His eyes dart away. He’s nervous; it’s clear that she won’t get an answer from him this time.

“You have bruises on your wrists,” Ms. Smith points out. “Can you tell me where you got them?”

Dean shrunk back, looking passive again. She was losing him. “Got in a fight.”

“Was the fight in your home?” She asks calmly.

Dean gives her a glare, full of brambly anger. He looks almost adult, in a twisted sense of the word. But Ms. Smith knows better, and can tell that this is just a child. A scared child, at that, just a boy, clinging to shattered pieces of normality and trying to defend himself with them as weapons. 

“What are you, a cop?” Dean grits out.

“Of course not,” Ms. Smith frowns. “These answers, this office—This all stays completely confidential. I’m legally not allowed to tell anybody what is said here unless you plan on hurting yourself or others. I just want to get to know you, that’s all.”

Dean continues glaring at her. He taps his shoe rapidly on the flat carpet. “Can I leave?” 

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Go to the next question please,” Dean bristles, his glare just slightly easing away.

“Of course.” Ms. Smith clears her throat. “You said your dad liked to argue a lot. Does he say mean things to you?”

“What would you define as mean?” Dean asks.

“Just any sort of insult or criticism,” Ms. Smith explains. “Things that hurt your feelings that they don’t apologize for, and you feel like they wouldn’t care if you told them it hurt your feelings.”

“My dad says all kind of sh—stuff, it doesn’t mean anything. He’s making me stronger,” Dean shrugs. “It makes me more of a man.”

And so another paint is added to the flaming portrait of Dean Winchester. Ms. Smith feels her heavy heart sag with the weight.

“Sure,” she says slowly. “So, Dean, how do you feel in your familial relationships? Do you feel loved and cared about?”

The glare returns with a greater intensity this time, and Dean now looks tense with embarrassment and hurt. He stands up from the chair, planting his feet firmly on the ground. “You don’t need to know any of this crap to teach me how to find X on a math problem. These questions are—Well frankly, they’re bullshit.”

“I’m very sorry if I’ve pushed too far, Dean,” Ms. Smith says with a deep frown. “Please, sit back down, we can talk about it.”

“You don’t know me,” Dean says shakily. “You don’t know my life. You’re just some stupid counselor. I’m just another one of your stupid projects. I don’t need this, and I don’t need you to help me. I don’t need help.”

Ms. Smith’s facade must falter just enough for Dean to see the pity, and the sympathy, and the deep anguish for how Dean must feel, because he shakes his head suddenly.

“My brother is expecting me,” he repeats. “I walk him home. Can I go now, or do you need to pick apart me life like some middle school science experiment some more?”

“You can go,” Ms. Smith says quietly.

She watches as he picks his backpack off the ground and storm out of the office, shutting the door loudly behind him. She looks back down at her case file and sheds a tear onto the paper. A broken kid in a broken life, who she doesn’t even begin to know how to help.

Her hand reaches up to a cross around her neck, and she grasps it and says a prayer for the boy. She’s starting to lose faith, over these years, seeing child after child not getting the help they need. But there’s something special about that Winchester boy.

None the matter, Dean doesn’t show up to school the next day. When she calls in, she finds that neither did his brother. 

Turns out the Winchesters move quicker than she imagined. Her papers go into the shredder the same day.

After some careful consideration, she imagines that Dean is a strong kid. He shouldn’t be strong, but he is. He’s strong for his little brother, and makes sure that the two of them eat while his father, an alcoholic who unfortunately uses for forceful methods of parenting, is absent every other day. 

But surely that’s all of it.

Right?


End file.
